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So. You’re insanely afraid of snakes. In the unlikely event that you’re faced with one, your fear will paralyse you – you can’t move, you can’t breathe so you just stand there – and with one bite, BAAM, you’re dead.

We tend to discount just how much our fears determine the way we live but the truth is they are with us, in every step we make, like the shadows that are bound to us. We even let fears dictate our actions, unwittingly making them come true. Don’t believe me? Just look around you or simply look deeper within yourself.

The guy who’s scared of commitment is the one that picks flaws in a relationship and does all he can to destroy it, bypassing happiness in the process. The woman, who’s terrified of abandonment, acts possessively and ends up driving those very same people away.

Interestingly enough, fears reveal more about the person than you’d think – I’m scared of people not loving me, not being good enough to be cared about.

Any shrink worth his salt would say all three of the above suffer from deep rooted self esteem issues. The best advice he can give? Just get over it. That basically sums up how to deal with fears – you can either let them consume you, control you or just break away.

Society plays a deep role in instilling and manipulating fears – Sagar Chabbria, a 24 year old man says his greatest fright is that of failure – not succeeding in achieving what he needs to, while one of 22 year old Gayathry Latheef’s fears include not being able to have her own children.

Me man – I bring food, you woman- you make babies – the stereotypes associated with Stone Age men and women have been so deeply ingrained, that you can see them even in the 21st century.

Losing a member of a family, suffocating and then dying are among the few common yet paralysing fears that people face today. Some of us manage to overcome our fears – by taking them on for a reality television show or by seeing them come true and continuing to survive. Then, there’s a third unfortunate kind that spends their lives hiding behind these ever strengthening shadows. So which one are you?